Storm on the island

• Seamus Heaney has authored a poem about a community of islanders preparing for a storm, investigating the battle of nature vs man.
• The poem centres on the experience of the storm, and how the islanders appear to get them regularly, impacting life on the island as they wait inside for it to pass.
• The poem is part of a three-poem segment in the collection ‘Death of a Naturalist’ which was focused on the Aran Islands and how nature shows its power there.
• The Aran Islands are used traditionally in Irish poetry as a symbol of Irish culture, and are home to some of Ireland’s oldest remains and archaeology.
• The poem was Heaney’s first collection, and the title is to demonstrate the violence of nature rather than a romanticised view of its beauty.
• The poem uses conversational colloquialisms to connect the reality of the islander’s lives to the readers.
• The poem relies on plosives to suggest nature is attacking the island, resembling bullets.
• The poem continues the theme of community vs isolation in the situation of a natural disaster.
• The poem replicates how the islanders never owned nature, it was always more powerful than them.
• The poem splits the tamed and known nature before from the violent aggressive storm.
• The Aran islands are seen traditionally in Irish poetry as a symbol of culture as they are known for ancient sites such as the remains of forts.
• The poem exposes the isolation of the islanders.
• The poem suggests that the power of nature is unknown and the islanders have no indicators of the storm’s power.
• Both poems suggest that the power of nature is greater than the power of humans, demonstrated in Ozymandias when nature takes over the statue through the symbolism of the desert, and in SOTI how nature is attacking the islanders.
• Both poems connect power with isolation: in Ozymandias, the isolation of the statue is to show loss of power, whereas in SOTI it is the isolation of island during and due to the storm.
• In The Prelude, there is spiritual development of a poet explored, as the speaker realises their own insignificance.
• The conflict with nature is displayed differently in each poem - in SOTI it is physical, as if they are being attacked by nature, whereas in The Prelude it is psychological – nature is inciting fear and redefining their view of the world.
• Both poems show nature as powerful, in SOTI, it is due to violence of nature – military metaphors - and in The Prelude, it is due to size and extent of nature, for example “huge peak”.
• The speakers in both discover truths about the world through their encounters with nature.
• Oxyomoron is a figure of speech where two opposing terms are placed next to each other.
• The poem is written in collective voice (first person plural), showing the islanders are speaking as a community.
• The poem could also potentially about the Northern Ireland conflict.
• Whilst they both connect power with aggression, in Ozymandias the military power of Ramesses II is connected to aggression, whereas in SOTI the power of the storm is connected to aggression.
• The contrast between the unification of a community and the isolation of the island is heightened by the structure of the poem.
• Both poems show nature as powerfully aggressive, with a constant barrage of attack, and this attack is often inescapable.
• The poem is written in dramatic monologue, there is no reply to the speaker which emphasises the isolation of the islanders.
• In SOTI, the islanders realise inability to control the storm, displayed through the poem’s cyclical content and narrative as the islanders always end up afraid.
• The poet is commenting on the tragedy and devastation of the storm.
• The line "no stacks or stooks that can be lost" shows that there’s no way to judge damage.
• Heaney personifies nature by making it seem like it intends to attack the island.
• Through setting his poem "Storm on the Island" in an autobiographical context, Heaney depicts a collective experience of an island through the use of the pronoun "we".
• There is no consistent rhyme scheme in the poem, which reflects how nature’s power is greater than humans and humans cannot control it.
• The cyclical nature of the poem shows the resilience of the islanders.
• The lack of rhyme scheme in the poem contrasts with the very controlled rhythm, which works to show human power resisting power and chaos of a storm.
• The concept of the poem reflects that only as a community can the storm be endured.
• Iambic Pentameter is a technique where the poet uses ten syllables in each line, with pairs of sounds going da-DA with the emphasis on the second syllable.
• The half rhyme between the first and last couplet in the poem creates a cyclical structure that connects the preparation for the storm at the start, to the fear of the storm’s power at the end.
• Heaney uses similes such as "spits like a tame cat/turned savage", which seem oxymoronic because a tame cat shouldn’t be aggressive, suggesting nature has a tame and docile side so it is not always like this.
• The use of Iambic Pentameter maintains a constant rhythm which could be argued to reflect a conversational tone.
• The lines overflow in the poem, implying the constant barrage of information or alternatively the constant barrage of the storm.